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Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Gunmen kill former Syrian FA president

Unknown gunmen shot and killed Wednesday the former head of
the Syrian Football Association (SFA), Marwan Arafat, and critically wounded
his wife in an attack Syria’s national news agency blamed on terrorists, a code
word for the increasingly armed opposition against embattled Syrian president
Bashar al-Assad.

Senior soccer executives who knew Mr. Arafat expressed
surprise at his killing, noting that he was widely respected and a lecturer for
the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The officials said the fact that 67-year
old Mr. Arafat – a former soccer player, scholar, sports analyst and journalist
- was assassinated on the highway linking the Jordanian capital of Amman with
Damascus was alarming.

They said there was no known reason for the killing and did
not exclude that it may have been a criminal rather than a political incident.

Statements in the past year by Mr. Arafat in support of
Syria’s embattled national soccer squads who have been accused of fielding
illegal players in international matches would however lend credence to the
news agency’s claim that the former soccer executive was killed by armed
opposition elements.

Little is known about Mr. Arafat’s political views who
served at the time of the besieged Syrian leader’s father, Hafez al-Assad, but
few are likely to make a distinction between support for the Syrian national
team and for the regime in a country plunging into civil war.

The news agency said Mr. Arafat was returning from Jordan
when he was killed shortly after crossing the border into Syria. Well-placed
sources said unidentified gunmen forced Mr. Arafat to pull over his car to the
side of the road before opening fire. They said Mr. Arafat’s wife had suffered
multiple gunshot wounds.

“Dr. Marwan Arafat was on his way back from Jordan, his wife
was critically injured in the attack which took place between Nasib border
crossing and al-Tayba town in Daraa Countryside. The Syrian General Sport Union
mourned Dr. Arafat, saying that the Syrian sport has lost one of its pioneers,”
the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said.

It quoted Lieutenant General Moafaq Jouma, head of the
General Sport Union, a saying that “we offer condolences to his family and to
our sport family, because his death is a loss for all of us.”

Besides serving for ten years as head of the SFA, Mr. Arafat
was also a member of the General Sport Union executive and the Syrian Olympic
Committee. Mr. Arafat made history as the first Arab linesman in Olympic games
in Moscow in 1980 and as head of the SFA led Syria to its 1994 winning of the
Under-21 Asian cup.

Syrian soccer has been increasingly polarized since last
year’s eruption of anti-government protests and the regime’s failed but brutal
attempts to crush the opposition. United Nations observers in Syria warned this
week that the confrontation between forces loyal to Mr. Assad and increasingly
armed segments of the opposition had produced a state of civil war in Syria.

Louay Chanko, a player for the Swedish national team, who
was able to stop playing for it because he also played for Swedish Assyrian team
Syrianska FC, said in an interview last month that many of the Syrian national
squad’s players were playing against their will. “Everything is corrupt. The
SFF just took players from the clubs. Many players didn’t want to play for the
national team any more. Players are so afraid,” Mr. Chanko said.

The Assad regime was so desperate for a Syrian soccer
success in a bid to shore up its wrecked image and to demonstrate that the
country was functioning normally despite the turmoil that it went in the past
year to great lengths to ensure that its national team would compete in
international tournaments, including the fielding of illegal players.

As a result, world soccer body FIFA barred Syria last August
from competing for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil after the team fielded an
unnamed ineligible player in in a qualifying match against Tajikistan.

Lebanon accused Syria last November of fielding six players
in an Under-19 Asian Football Championship qualifier whose ages had been
falsified to qualify them for the team. Syria’s governing football body
populated by Assad appointees has denied the allegations, determined to
preserve the Syrian team’s record so far of having all four of its qualifiers
in the tournament. At the time, Mr. Arafat said the eligibility of the Syrian
players was “incontestable.”

State-run Syrian Al Dunya television, in one of its more
bizarre parroting of allegations of foreign intervention by embattled President
Bashar al-Assad’s regime, accused crowned traditionally left-wing leaning
Spanish soccer club FC Barcelona last March of employing its tactical
formations to deliver coded messages to armed Syrian rebels.

Syrian security forces arrested national soccer goalkeeper
Mosab Balhous more than a year ago on charges of sheltering armed gangs and
possessing suspicious amounts of money. Mr. Balhous has not been heard of
since.

In a YouTube video, Mr. Balhous’ colleague, Abdelbasset
Sarut, goalkeeper of the Syrian U-23 men’s national team and a leader of the
uprising in the beleaguered Syrian city of Homs, said at the time that the
Assad regime had accused Mr. Bahous of participating in anti-government
protests and wanting to establish an Islamic emirate in the city of Homs.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in
Singapore, author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East
Soccer, and a consultant to geopolitical consulting firm Wikistrat.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile